Doctor and leukaemia wife found dead in pub

By Richard Savill

12:01AM BST 22 Aug 2002

A doctor and his wife have been found dead in a room at a village pub in an apparent suicide pact before which they had their dogs put down.

The bodies of Michael Griffin, 43, who worked in the trauma and orthopaedic department at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, and his wife, Adele, 42, were found the Waterloo Cross Inn at Willand, Devon.

They were reported to have taken an overdose of tablets. Mrs Griffin was believed to have been suffering from leukaemia while her husband had a history of depression.

Staff at the hotel raised the alarm at midday on Friday after the couple, who lived in Falmouth, had not been seen for sometime.

Police were not treating the deaths as suspicious. The couple had no children. Mrs Griffin had described herself as a doctor but it was not thought to be of medicine.

Her husband qualified in London and previously worked as a GP in Milton Keynes, Bucks. He specialised in paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology.

Susan Bowerbank, a neighbour of the couple, said Dr and Mrs Griffin had their two pets, Robbie, a five-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, and Ebony, a Yorkshire terrier, put down the day before they booked into the hotel.

She said Mrs Griffin, who was believed to have had a tumour as well as leukaemia, rang her up two or three times a day for "a natter".

Mrs Bowerbank said: "Mike told me that he could not live without Adele and, a few days earlier, she told me it was a shame that she was not going to see my puppy Tilly grow up. I told her not to be silly."

The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust said: "Dr Griffin was a valued member of our trauma and orthopaedic team with whom he had worked for the last three years."

A source close to the investigation said: "Adele told people she was a doctor and also said that she was terminally ill."

Peter Dickinson, 50, manager of the Waterloo Cross Inn, said: " Obviously it is case of two rather unfortunate people deciding they had had enough."

A practice manager at Rosemullion Veterinary Hospital in Falmouth, who declined to give her name, said that, although a vet would discuss why someone wished to have their pet put down, ultimately it was the owner's decision.